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Post by almuric on Oct 24, 2020 19:39:51 GMT -5
Hammer put a lot of hot babes in their flicks...nice I remember watching one of the Dracula films when I was younger and I asked my parents why all the women in these movies had such big boobs. Hammer's policy of mixing sex with their horror meant that even their lesser films still have a few points of interest.  |
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Post by themirrorthief on Oct 25, 2020 12:29:22 GMT -5
u sly dog
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Post by charleshelm on Oct 25, 2020 13:55:19 GMT -5
Twins of Evil ftw there...
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Post by almuric on Oct 26, 2020 16:28:49 GMT -5
Fright Night (1985) - When Alucard relocated from Transylvania to the American South, he transplanted the vampire mythos from the Old World to the New. By the 1980s, the vampire was fast shedding its original gothic trappings, resulting in a number of fascinating new cinematic takes. Our vampire here is Jerry Danridge (Chris Sarandon), who dresses in the most up-to-the-minute (for 1985) fashions and while he lives in an old dark house, he also has a modern stereo system. When his new neighbour Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale), spies on him and discovers his secret, Jerry begins a campaign to terrorize and destroy the teenager and everyone he cares about. In his desperation, Charley turns to aging horror actor Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowell), former star of such fictitious classics as Castle Blood and Orgy of the Damned, now host of the late-night show Fright Night. "Apparently, all they want to see are demented madmen running around in ski-masks, hacking up young virgins", Vincent laments, summing up far too much of '80s horror. For all its '80s trappings though, this movie is a love letter to the Monster Kid generation who grew up watching the kind of films Peter Vincent starred in, while at the same time updating and having fun with their tropes. What Fright Night might lack in depth, it makes up for in enjoyment. And its success would spawn a mini-renaissance in big screen vampirism during the years to come.
Followed by an inadvisable sequel and reboot, because Hollywood can't leave well enough alone, in any era.
Next: Party 'til the end of time
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Post by johnnypt on Oct 26, 2020 18:32:37 GMT -5
The leading lady in Fright Night is a pre Married With Children Amanda Bearse. My dad had a fond memory of this picture. He took my sister and her friends to see it and in the scene where (spoilers) a newly vampired Amanda asks Ragsdale “Don’t you want me?”, some kid yelled out “I want ya baby!” It’s funnier now thinking about how this kid was lusting after the chicken lady next door to the Bundys.
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Post by charleshelm on Oct 26, 2020 19:16:24 GMT -5
OG Fright Nigth was great.
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Post by almuric on Oct 26, 2020 19:49:05 GMT -5
The leading lady in Fright Night is a pre Married With Children Amanda Bearse. My dad had a fond memory of this picture. He took my sister and her friends to see it and in the scene where (spoilers) a newly vampired Amanda asks Ragsdale “Don’t you want me?”, some kid yelled out “I want ya baby!” It’s funnier now thinking about how this kid was lusting after the chicken lady next door to the Bundys. My big question about that scene is how her hair grew shoulder-length when she was vamped and suddenly returned to its normal length after . . . Also, this movie crystallized something for me: most classic vampire movies are about infidelity. It runs through the various incarnations of Dracula, through stuff like Kiss of the Vampire and into Fright Night. The vampire is an interloper: incredibly handsome and irresistible who shows up and pretty soon the protagonist's girlfriend/fiancee/wife is sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet her inhuman lover, forcing her boyfriend/fiancee/husband to fight to get her back.
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Post by almuric on Oct 27, 2020 9:41:39 GMT -5
The Lost Boys and Near Dark (1987) - A young man (Jason Patric/Adrian Pasdar) meets a mysterious young woman (Jami Gertz/Jenny Wright), who leads him into an gang of vampires led by a charismatic bloodsucker (Kiefer Sutherland/Lance Henriksen). As you might guess, these two movies, released within two months of each other, have a lot in common. They remain an interesting study in how different productions approach similar material. The former is more crowd-pleasing and a bit more family-friendly. The latter is harsher and more adult. Both movies play a bit with the established vampire lore, the former keeping much of the traditional vampire stuff with twists (vampires don't sleep in coffins, but hang from the roof like bats), the latter paring it down to the bare essentials (the word "vampire" is never even used). Both have great supporting casts. The Lost Boys has the Frog Brothers (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), a pair of scene-stealing preteen Van Helsings, while Near Dark has an unsettling Joshua John Miller as Homer, a 100 year-old vampire in a boy's body.
The massive success of The Lost Boys didn't help Near Dark, which died at the box office, becoming a cult hit in the years that followed. Near Dark almost had a remake a while back, but it was back-burnered because it was seen as being too similar to Twilight. Yay Twilight? Of the two, Near Dark is the better of the two, suffering only from an ending which feels a bit too pat, but The Lost Boys is a lot of fun. They'd make a fascinating double-bill.
Next: Abandon logic, all ye who enter here
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Post by almuric on Oct 28, 2020 19:25:31 GMT -5
Inferno (1980) - This semi-sequel to Suspiria features another one of the Three Mothers, the witch-queens who secretly spread death and misery through the world. When (Irene Miracle) mysteriously vanishes, her brother Mark (Leigh McClosky) returns from Italy (where he's been experiencing some unusual things himself). There he tries to understand the mysteries of the New York apartment building where she lived before he's destroyed by the evil witchcraft which permeates the edifice. If it doesn't scale the same rarefied heights as its predecessor, it's because of two things. The music by Keith Emerson is not as wild and hysterical as the Goblin score for Suspiria. The second is the lead.While Jessica Harper projects vulnerability and a sense that she's constantly trying to understand what the hell is going on around her, McCloskey is a lot less engaging. That said, he does replicate much of the same nightmare logic and atmosphere of dread of the original. Phenomena (1985) - And this one's just plain nuts. It doesn't start out that way. Jennifer Connelly (in one of her very first screen roles) plays Jennifer, a young woman sent away to school in Switzerland. In addition to the regular problems of growing up she has to cope with sleepwalking and a psychic ability to control insects. She ends up helping Dr. McGregor (Donald Pleasance), a parapalegic entomologist with a chimpanzee caregiver, assisting the police with the investigation of the murder of several young women. Wait you say, this sounds odd but not nuts. In fact, despite brief eruptions of violence, this is almost sedate by Argento standards. Just wait until you get to the last twenty minutes. The climax is some of the most legitimately insane horror cinema I have ever seen. I would not dare dream of spoiling how utterly crazy it gets. You deserve to go in as unspoiled as I was.
Beware of the heavily-cut original North American version of this movie retitled Creepers. This and Argento's version of the film are included in the recent Synapse Blu-Ray.
Next: Boyyyyyy!
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Post by almuric on Oct 30, 2020 10:30:00 GMT -5
Phantasm (1979) - After a pair of indie movies that came and went, Don Coscarelli struck gold with this weird and imaginative tale. Young Mike (Michael Baldwin) has become convinced his small town's mysterious and threatening undertaker (Angus Scrimm) is harbouring a terrifying secret. With the help of his brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) and ice-cream man Reggie (Reggie Bannister), he must confront the Tall Man. This low-budget miracle is one of the best examples of imagination and creativity triumphing over a lack of resources. The plot freely mixes horror tropes with science-fictional elements. Instead of following the slasher trend, Coscarelli created a unique villain in the form of the Tall Man and his Sentinel Sphere. Despite being a little rough around the edges, Phantasm succeeds on its willingness to go further. It launched a durable series (all directed or produced by Coscarelli) which was sometimes plagued by low budgets and poor distribution. I highly recommend Coscarelli's autobiography, True Indie for the whole story. It's an entertaining read. Look for the restored 4K Blu-Ray from Bad Robot.
Well, that wraps it up for this October. Tomorrow I'll cap things off with a rewatch of Young Frankenstein.
Happy Halloween!
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Post by charleshelm on Oct 30, 2020 19:22:20 GMT -5
Phantasm is indeed a good watch.
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Post by keith on Nov 11, 2020 5:07:42 GMT -5
The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) - Universal had proven there was an audience for Horror, and other studios were beginning to try their hands at it. A year before, Warners had done Doctor X which like this movie was directed by Michael Curtiz (of Casablanca and Adventures of Robin Hood fame) and starred Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill. This isn't a bad movie by any means, but it never quite takes off until the end. Part of the problem is the tone. Warners clearly wasn't entirely comfortable with doing straight-up Horror, so we have a lot of scenes and characters that would feel more at home with their crime dramas and comedies. Unlike the early Universals, this is set in the then here-and-now, so we have brightly-lit contemporary New York scenes followed by shadowy, atmospheric bursts of Horror. The effect is jarring. It also doesn't help that the "mystery" aspect is weak. There's not much doubt that Atwill is behind the body-snatchings, and the only real mystery is the identity of the hideous scarred figure (who is compared in dialogue to Frankenstein). But the climax, when they finally remember they're doing a Horror movie, is great. We get some of Curtiz's patented dramatic shadows and Wray's unmasking of Atwill, breaking his wax mask to reveal his horribly-scarred face is perfect. This was filmed in the two-color Technicolor process, just like Doctor X. Warners apparently only used the process on their two Horror movies to use up their contract with Technicolor. The process wasn't liked by the public and this would be the last movie made with it. The movie, being Pre-Code, has several moments of sauciness that may surprise the modern viewer. Glenda Farrell's character casually asks a policeman about his sex life and checks out the girlie magazine he's reading. There's references to shacking up and a junkie plays a role near the climax. Whatever its weaknesses, the movie clearly had an impact. Spooky wax museums would appear in a lot of mysteries over the years to come. And twenty years later, the story would be revisited and be used for another cinematic innovation. Next time: The Price of Wax |
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Post by keith on Nov 11, 2020 5:45:41 GMT -5
Spooky wax museums would indeed appear in movies again and again after this one. I remember CHAMBER OF HORRORS from the 1960s. It was cheesy but amusing and Patrick O'Neal as the twisted, suave villain Jason (are they all called either Jason or Sebastian?) gave one of his better performances. Cesare Danova and Wilfred Hyde-White as the amateur sleuths aren't bad, but the best performance in the movie for my money was Jeanette Nolan's cameo as Jason's roguish Aunt Sarah, who enlightens Tony Draco (Danova) on the debauched eccentricity of the men in her family and unhesitatingly tells him her nephew is the worst of the lot. "Mad as a hatter.Taste for the low life, well, they all had that ... Jason hung about with all kinds of criminals ... but he put Melinda on a pedestal, which is a damned silly place for any man to put a woman ... makes it all the easier for her to kick him."
Draco asks politely, "And Melinda Sawyer, er ... kicked?"
"Like a mule!" Sarah responds. "Not a bit better than she should be. When Jason discovered his fiancee was unfaithful, that monstrous ego of his couldn't endure it."
Jason's response was to strangle the naughty Melinda with her own hair and then force a preacher, at gunpoint, to go through a wedding ceremony with Jason and the dead girl, whom he dressed in her wedding gown for the occasion. Draco and Blount catch him, or help the police catch him, and Jason is sentenced to hang, but he escapes from the train that is taking him to prison and execution and returns with only one hand, to get revenge on those who trapped him. Not just revenge, though. With a selection of knives and cleavers as alternatives to the hook he now wears, he begins to dismember everybody who caught or sentenced him, and deliver the appropriate parts wrapped in brown butcher's paper to the police, with mocking notes attached. Draco and Blount cotton to the fact that the "Butcher of Baltimore" is Jason, alive after all, and that he is "building a composite corpse" from the men who brought him to justice. He labels the judge's torso, "the edge of reason for the body of the law", the arresting sergeant's arms "the limbs of the law will grip no more," and so on. Tony Draco, who planned the strategy that tracked Jason down and led to the madman's arrest, is being saved for the last and is intended to supply the head.
Oh, yes, Hyde-White as Harold Blount, wax sculptor and amateur criminologist, author of "Blount on Bloodstains" and "Blount on Blunt Instruments" and apparently others, is worth the price of admission too. I wonder what his other books were? "Blount on Blackmail", maybe? "Blount on Blunders", if he'd devoted a book to grotesque miscarriages of justice (Part One) and stupid mistakes by criminals that led to their apprehension (Part Two)?
But I still say Jeanette Nolan as Aunt Sarah is the most delightful character of the lot.
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Post by almuric on Sept 27, 2021 16:08:39 GMT -5
It's almost that time of year again . . .
I realized I hadn't covered any Jekyll or Hyde movies before, so this year I'm making up for it with three. Stay tuned.
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Post by johnnypt on Sept 27, 2021 19:15:49 GMT -5
It's almost that time of year again . . . I realized I hadn't covered any Jeckyll or Hyde movies before, so this year I'm making up for it with three. Stay tuned. Only three?  Come to think of it I only have one of them on DVD...and it's the one costarring a couple of guys from New Jersey. |
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